Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!mailrus!ames!eos!barry From: barry@eos.UUCP (Kenn Barry) Newsgroups: news.admin Subject: Re: Your right to swing your fist stops at my nose! Summary: Censorship here? No, thanks! Keywords: The NET need not die... Message-ID: <925@eos.UUCP> Date: 20 Jun 88 20:28:31 GMT References: <5816@cup.portal.com> <581@picuxa.UUCP> <13@n0atp.UUCP> <2744@ttrdc.UUCP> <974@ucsd.EDU> <14@n0atp.UUCP> <10288@ncc.Nexus.CA> < <22@n0atp.UUCP> Reply-To: barry@eos.UUCP (Kenn Barry) Organization: QQQCLC Lines: 63 I see potential for confusion here. Follow-uppers, watch out: Barry Berg is barry@n0atp; I am Kenn Barry, barry@eos.UUCP. Try not to get us backwards :-). >>In article <21@n0atp.UUCP> barry@n0atp.UUCP (Barry S. Berg) writes: >> In any case whatever the transmission media, the initial point of this >> posting was that of obscenities. We don't need them, and you insult >> more than the person you are flaming with them. I think this is the aspect of your suggestion that needs the most amplification. We don't need them? Well, most of the net would be hard to justify on a basis of "need". Can we agree that the word you should have chosen was "want"? If so, I suggest you're wrong. One of the best things about the net is the nearly-complete freedom of expression available here. In a time when silly, archaic rules about "obscenity" have nearly disappeared from print media, why do you feel having such rules on the net would be a good thing? In article <22@n0atp.UUCP> barry@n0atp.UUCP (Barry S. Berg) writes: >Maybe we should bounce the posting because of bad language. Why? I don't object to bad language. I do object to bad writing, but I'm even willing to put up with that, in return for the freedom the net gives to everyone to have their say. Your proposal looks to me like a solution in search of a problem. Unless/until some Meese-clone looks in on the net, and decides that unlicensed vulgarity is corrupting the moral fiber of our youth, and must be stopped, I fail to see in what way such language constitutes a problem. >I don't think that there is a technical solution. Maybe we as admins... >just mail a pink slip to the offender's home machine admin, and if that >administrator gets in their opinion enough of them, she/he has a talk with >the offender. This would handle the no dirty words in the message, but >the context was obscene problem. I know its a lot of trouble, but I think >we need to set a level of community standards here. I like the standards we have. They do exist. Net opinion has successfully controlled unjustifiably extreme and unprovoked outbursts of sheer hatred, as well as other inappropriate uses of this net, like outright advertising. What we have, now, is a comfortably loose system which only comes down on those who manage to seriously outrage the bulk of the people this net serves - those who read it. As a system of control, this verges on the ideal. Perhaps it will not continue to work indefinitely, as more and more sites and users join the net, but so far, so good. So-called obscenity has its uses. Even you concede as much, by admitting that a single use of "the f-word" should not provoke censorship. I see no evidence that the kind of standards you want in place are desired by the rank and file of the net, nor have I seen any arguments from you for their desirability. I see no reason we need to honor superstitious ideas of words as magical, mana-filled entities. I would be repelled by the installation of a net.police to oversee what I and others post. That's just an invitation to ideologues and Mrs. Grundys to coerce this refreshingly open forum into their personal vision of right-thinking purity. It is our good fortune that the lack of any central authority on the net makes such a thing presently impossible. Long live free speech. - From the Crow's Nest - Kenn Barry - QQQCLC - NASA-Ames Research Center ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ELECTRIC AVENUE: {most major sites}!ames!eos!barry ARPA: barry@eos